


With Bated Breath

by onward_came_the_meteors



Series: October 2020 Prompts [13]
Category: The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Friendship, Gen, Hiding Medical Issues, Hurt Tony Stark, One Shot, POV Third Person, Post-Avengers (2012), Team Dynamics
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-13
Updated: 2020-10-13
Packaged: 2021-03-08 04:08:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,305
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26989540
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/onward_came_the_meteors/pseuds/onward_came_the_meteors
Summary: All he has to do is hang on for just a few more minutes.
Relationships: Tony Stark & Avengers Team
Series: October 2020 Prompts [13]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1947679
Comments: 2
Kudos: 77





	With Bated Breath

**Author's Note:**

> Day 13, for the prompt: "chemical pneumonia"

_ You’d really think, that if S.H.I.E.L.D. is the top intelligence agency in the world, with more power and influence than some small countries, then they wouldn’t need to keep people waiting. _

_ Especially when said people had just saved the world for them again, thanks. _

Okay, maybe not the world, per se, but definitely at least a couple blocks of the greater tri-state area.

Tony was leaning forward in the chair, his hands clasped over each other as he stared at the floor—which was smooth and had been very shiny before he and the other Avengers had walked in and messed it up with dirt and dust and blood (not a  _ lot _ of blood, but more than the average amount of blood on a hallway floor). The suit was by his feet, folded up into suitcase form.

They had been waiting here, in the hallway outside… Fury’s office? Nah, that guy wouldn’t have anything as public as that—he was more the type to have a secret underground bunker or something. This was probably just whatever empty room S.H.I.E.L.D. had decided had the most uncomfortable chairs in the entire headquarters.

Tony shifted on the hard metal and wished they would just hurry up already and debrief them so that they could get back to the Tower. Everything ached from being inside the suit for hours on end, and there was a headache stabbing behind his eyes that had been steadily growing ever since the end of the mission. A mission that, among other things, had involved a Hulk on fire, which was a pretty accurate summary of the whole thing, now that he thought about it.

“—because it was a  _ bad idea _ .”

“Well, now we’re never going to get the chance to find out.”

“Maybe this is just me, but I don’t need the chance to know that staying inside a building that is on fire is a bad idea, Cap.”

“It wasn’t on  _ fire _ —”

“The lower floors were.”

“And I wasn’t on the lower floors.”

“How exactly were you planning to get out? 'Cause I can tell you I was down on the street, so if you were expecting a grappling arrow—”

“I could’ve gone through a window. Or, the rooftops were pretty close together. Or I could’ve gotten a ride.” Steve gestured at Thor and Tony with the arm that wasn’t currently being held at a careful angle against his side. He’d insisted that broken bones always healed quickly for him, and so far he seemed to be right, but it didn’t stop him from wincing every time he moved it accidentally.

Clint shook his head. He was lying sideways against four chairs lined up together, his head propped up on his arms. Like all the others, he was covered in grime and ash; black streaks were striping his dark blond hair and Tony couldn’t tell whether he genuinely had a black eye or he’d just rubbed his face too hard. “Whatever you say, Cap. Next time I’ll just leave you to become a star-spangled pancake.”

“And next time I’ll leave you to fall twenty stories onto the pavement.”

“That happened  _ one _ time.”

Natasha caught Tony’s eyes from where she sat a seat away from Clint, watching the proceedings with an amused look. Aside from the smudges of dirt on her face, she appeared relatively unscathed, even though Tony had caught her limping a little when they’d first stepped into headquarters.

He tried to return it, but his headache was pounding now, and he had the feeling it came out as more of a grimace. Natasha gave him an odd look, but turned back to Clint and Steve, who apparently hadn’t run out of things to argue about yet.

“What do you  _ mean _ you said it in coms?” Steve was asking now. He leaned down and propped the shield back up against the chair from where it had been starting to slide. 

“I mean I said it in coms, what else do you—”

“I heard  _ nothing _ like that.” Steve’s gaze swept the room and eventually landed on the person a few seats away on Tony’s right. “Thor, back me up.”

“What are we talking about?” Thor asked innocently. He was almost lounging on his chair and would’ve looked like he didn’t have a care in the world if it wasn’t for the full Asgardian armor he was still wearing and the hammer resting in the chair next to him. The bleeding cuts up and down his face (had he flown through a  _ window? _ ) and the sweat slicking his hair back in a tangled clump of knots were the only things that ruined the picture of nonchalance. Aside from the sleeping Bruce Banner leaning heavily on his cape as a blanket, that is.

“Hawkeye over here—” Steve started, but Natasha interrupted.

“Are you guys done? Because everybody made a lot of bad calls today, and I’d rather not listen to them all over again.” She leaned back in her seat to peer through the window of the office door as though anyone was actually going to come out and tell them they were done waiting. 

_ Although I really, really, wish they would. _ Tony swallowed, and something crackled in the back of his throat.

“I don’t know if I would say  _ everybody _ ,” Thor mused. “I don’t think I made any bad calls. Just as an example.”

Natasha said something exasperated back, but Tony didn’t catch it. The room was slowly beginning to spin, one way and then the other like an amusement park ride, and suddenly all he could hear was his own breathing.

His breathing sounded weird. Was that a problem?

He tuned back in just as Clint was saying something that sounded like “how much more fire would you  _ like  _ there to be?” and Steve was staring at the ceiling in hopes that the answers would be written on it—or maybe he was thinking about escaping. Tony certainly wouldn’t blame him.

If they could get back to Avengers Tower now, where there was a shower and a bed and  _ silence _ , he’d be fine. But instead he was  _ stuck _ here where everything was  _ burning  _ (that was  _ definitely  _ weird; he knew the air conditioning had been on in here when he’d walked in, but everything felt too hazy for him to really think about that too much) and his breathing was starting to rasp against his throat and make that burning  _ worse _ , and his head. Would not. Shut up.

He dropped his head into his hands and closed his eyes, watching the little stars burst against the blackness of the inside of his eyelids. It was just too hot in here, that was all. It was too hot and he had been fighting too long and he hadn’t slept all that well the past few nights because he’d had  _ things to do _ and when it came to their projects in the lab Bruce was such an enabler—

Someone was saying his name. He blinked and forced himself to look up. It was Natasha’s voice again, but she wasn’t talking to him.

“—honestly, Clint, I thought it was Stark’s job to argue with Steve about every single thing that went wrong on a mission.”

“Not every mission—” Steve protested, but Clint was already laughing.

“I knew something was off. You feeling alright over there?” That last part was directed at Tony, and before he could even formulate the proper reaction, Clint was turning to him and the grin vanished from his face.

“Hey…  _ are _ you feeling all right?” That tone of voice, from Barton of all people, caught the others’ attention, and in another second Tony found himself the object of four very scrutinizing stares.

“I…” he started, but that was all he could manage before he had to grit his teeth to keep from coughing.

He really should have expected what came next.

“What happened?” Clint asked.

“Were you injured during the fight?” Thor added. “Why didn’t you mention it sooner?”

“Should we get to Medical?” That was Steve. “And correct me if I’m wrong, but didn’t I already ask, right when we got here, if anybody needed—”

“Yeah, because we always tell the truth when it’s about our own injuries,” Natasha pointed out. She directed her next words to Tony, still watching him carefully. “Now that you’ve failed your chance to fake your way out of it, do you mind telling us what ha—”

“Nothing happened.” Tony shoved the words out through a protesting throat, and everyone else cut themselves off—some definitely more reluctantly than others, given the disgruntled look on Steve’s face, but he put that out of his mind as he focused on standing up.

It was a longer process than usual, one involving an iron grip around the back of the chair to keep himself from swaying and gray blinking across his vision, but he managed to struggle to his feet.

“See? Fine,” he said brusquely, in part because his voice was still raspy and he was trying not to choke on every word. The burning had shifted to his eyes now, like he’d accidentally opened them underwater, which was not helping the pulsing pain in his head. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I need to make a trip to the—”

He was interrupted by a cough that refused to be held back any longer. One turned to another, and before long he was practically doubled over, struggling for breath as the inside of his throat seemed to peel itself off.

His hands brushed over the hard lump in his shirt that was the arc reactor—the arc reactor that currently felt like it was cramming itself into his lungs and straining at his chest.

There was talking around him, people around him, someone touching his back, but he couldn’t see—why couldn’t he see?—oh, his eyes were closed—when had that happened?

Tony blinked as he drew in a ragged breath, trying to force himself upright because didn’t that increase your lung capacity? That is, if he still had lungs, which he was beginning to doubt.

The Avengers were standing around him: Steve with wide eyes, his hands hovering in the air like he wasn’t sure what to do with them; Natasha, the one at his back, and he suddenly realized that she was a lot of the reason he was upright; Clint, lurking a few feet away and muttering something about giving him some air (which, Tony appreciated the thought, but the air currently felt like it was nails raking down his throat every time he breathed); Thor, standing up from his seat and yanking his cape out from under Bruce, who made a quiet complaining sound before he stretched awake and spotted Tony, and his mouth formed an “O.”

Tony groaned. “So, uh. On second thought.”

He listed sideways and felt someone step in to break his fall—not Natasha, she was in front of him now; and not Thor, he was standing on his other side next to Bruce—

“He was in the building for a while,” Steve said, and the location of his voice was very suspicious, but he wasn’t going to think about that. “With all the fire, and the smoke, maybe…”

Thor frowned. “Wouldn’t his suit keep him from inhaling any of that?”

_ Ehhh _ … Tony thought he’d kept that part in his head, but judging by the look Natasha was now pinning him with, he might’ve said it aloud. Either that or she really could read minds.

“Did you  _ stay  _ in the suit?” she asked. It was really amazing how hard it was to break eye contact with Natasha Romanoff when she wanted an answer from you.

Another series of coughs interrupted Tony before he could answer, however, and he gasped at the floor for a bit and cleared his throat. Natasha was still watching him. Well, so was everyone, but he was attempting to block out the stuff in his peripheral vision. “Here’s the thing—”

_ Listen, the building was coming down and there wasn’t any room and the suit was too big and heavy to squeeze through without collapsing the floor, and there really wasn’t any other choice—it’s not like I was  _ trying  _ to inhale anything— _

But he didn’t get to say any of that—explaining himself was a luxury for lesser superheroes—because at that exact moment, the door to the office opened and a S.H.I.E.L.D. agent stepped out.

“They’re ready for you now—” she started to say, before stopping in her tracks.

Evidently, she hadn’t been prepared for the sight of the Avengers all frozen around a doubled-over Tony Stark, half of them paused in the act of reaching out to steady him and the other half turned toward the door with wide eyes like a herd of deer in headlights.

“Oh.”

Clint waved. “You mind getting us some help over here?”

“I—yes. Of course.” The S.H.I.E.L.D. agent hovered for another moment before turning and hurrying down the hall, pulling out a phone from her pocket as she went.

Tony would’ve smirked, but his muscles were apparently unwilling to perform even that simple of a task. He staggered backward, feeling himself relax further into the arms of whoever it was behind him (it really did feel like Steve. He was going to ignore the possibility that it was Steve) with a sigh that was really just a weak puff of air.

It was getting very hard to keep his eyes open, but the last thing he saw clearly was Natasha shaking her head.

“We really can’t take you anywhere, Stark.”

He wanted to argue, but that would’ve taken too much energy. His eyes slipped closed instead.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading!


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